The Municipality of Marcos, Ilocos Norte awarded a Farm Mechanization Service Facility to the members of the Agunit Multi-Purpose Cooperative in a ceremony held at the Marcos Municipal Hall Grounds Marcos, Ilocos Norte on November 24, 2017.

The enterprise subproject is the first of its kind to be received by the proponent farmer organization and to be awarded by the Municipality of Marcos. Previously, the Municipality of Marcos has proposed for the Rehabilitation of the Fortuna-Daquioag Farm to Market Road. However, the infrastructure subproject did not push through because of a violation in the Project’s guidelines on parallel roads.

With the SLP, the Agunit MPC received a four-wheel tractor with complete accessories (i.e. cage roller, rotary tiller/leveler, and heavy-duty trailer) which is targeted to increase farmer’s income by 30 percent at the end of the Project. The farm implement will provide discounted land preparation and hauling services to farmers.

The SLP is the PRDP’s response to the detrimental effects of Typhoon Lando among adversely affected farmers in Luzon. Typhoon Lando hit Luzon when crops were a week away from being harvested.

Under the SLP, farmer organizations were allowed to propose enterprises without supporting any priority commodities and without being listed in the Provincial Commodity Investment Plan (PCIP).  Otherwise, the PRDP requires that its subprojects support regional priority commodities and list of interventions per commodity through an investment plan.

For this month, proponent farmer organizations and procuring local government units (LGUs) are down to awarding the last batches of the Small Livelihood Project (SLP) under the Philippine Rural Development Project. All SLPs must be awarded or implemented within November 2017 to avoid cancellation. ### (Dessa U. Estrada and Vida V. Cacal, RPCO 1 InfoACE Unit)